Criminal case

The Indiana Court of Appeals disagreed with an appellant who claimed police did not have reasonable suspicion to believe he
and two other men were involved in criminal activity, which led to their stop and his eventual conviction of Class A felony
attempted dealing in methamphetamine.

A car is a “place people are likely to gather,” the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday, unanimously affirming
a Class C felony criminal recklessness conviction and eight-year sentence for a man who fired a gun into car in which a former
gang ally was a passenger in Goshen.

Six people in northwest Indiana, including three council members, were indicted Thursday on federal charges resulting from
an investigation by the Northern District of Indiana’s Public Corruption Task Force.

The blood of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer accused of driving drunk and killing one motorcyclist
and injuring two others should be allowed at his trial for reckless homicide and other alcohol-related charges, the Indiana
Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday morning on interlocutory appeal.

In a four-page per curiam decision, the Indiana Supreme Court reinstated the trial court’s 47-year sentence of Roger
Bushhorn, who pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his escape, kidnapping and assault of jail officials.

The post-conviction court erred in denying Andrew McWhorter relief when he challenged his conviction of voluntary manslaughter
in connection to the death of his girlfriend, the Indiana Court of Appeals concluded. McWhorter may not be retried on the
same charge, but may face retrial for reckless homicide.

Two men sentenced to life in prison on an assortment of federal charges related to a prostitution ring involving underage
girls that operated in northwest Indiana failed in their appeal before the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, but judges
asked the trial court to clarify the sentence for a third defendant.

The state failed to prove an essential element of criminal trespass, according to one Indiana justice, so he dissented from
his colleagues’ decision to uphold a man’s conviction stemming from his refusal to leave his bank.

The highly anticipated decision by the United States Supreme Court on health care will come another day. The justices released
four opinions Thursday, which did not include the challenges to the health care law. They did decide the case before them
involving the Federal Communications Commission.

A federal jury found attorney and financier Tim Durham guilty Wednesday on all 12 felony counts stemming from what prosecutors
charged was a massive Ponzi scheme that cost investors in Ohio-based Fair Finance more than $200 million.

The Indiana Court of Appeals found police acted improperly in swabbing a teen’s penis to obtain DNA evidence and that
the trial court erred in admitting this test into evidence, but that the error was harmless.

The Supreme Court of the United States will hear a case that stems from its 2010 decision Padilla v. Kentucky, in
which the justices held that criminal defense attorneys are obligated under the Sixth Amendment to advise noncitizen defendants
about immigration consequences of pleading guilty. The justices will now rule on whether its decision is retroactive.<

The Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that because a defendant’s attorney asked a detective whether the defendant admitted
to molesting his girlfriend’s daughter, the defense opened the door to the prosecution to ask about the scope of the
interview. The defendant claimed his Fifth Amendment rights were violated when the detective said the defendant asked to “stop
speaking” during the interview.

A woman convicted of murdering her husband in the 1970s who escaped from prison and remained a fugitive for 35 years isn’t
entitled to file a petition for belated appeal because her willful act of fleeing prevented her attorney from pursuing the
appeal.

The Indiana Court of Appeals has ordered that a man’s robbery sentence be reduced because that conviction and sentence
were not allowed due to double jeopardy. The man’s sentence for murder, robbery and rape dropped from 160 years to 130
years.